<br/> and carriage returns in xml

Just starting to get to grips with xml now and have also started using schemas but there is just one thing that is annoying me at the moment.
How can I use XSL/XSLT or XML Schema to make sure that either <br/> are interpreted as carriage returns or that carriage returns are processed.
At the moment In my XML file I have a looooong article (an episode synopsis actually) which used <br/> tags when it was in a html file. But now they`re in an xml file, the <br/> and the carriage returns are ignored.